Officials at the CDC have confirmed that last week the agency sent out an email alert to foodborne disease partners at the state and local levels looking for any illnesses associated with complaints related to the consumption of Lucky Charms cereal. According to the alert, there has been an increase in gastrointestinal illness complaints attributed to eating the cereal.

Earlier this month, Food Safety News reported on complaints made on the iwaspoisoned.com website. The Food and Drug Administration has been investigating reports of illnesses possibly linked to Lucky Charms cereal since the first week of April.

The message from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said:
During April 2022, there has been an increase in complaints of gastrointestinal illness (GI) attributed to eating Lucky Charms cereal reported primarily to a crowdsourcing website. Some complaints of illness have also been reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), state, and local health departments. There are very little data on the clinical presentation of these complaints, e.g., symptom profiles, incubation periods, and illness durations, as well as a lack of laboratory testing of clinical specimens. The scarcity of data and lack of a consistent clinical presentation are making it difficult to ascertain if any of these illnesses are linked to the suspected cereal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is coordinating with state and federal partners to characterize the clinical presentations and epidemiology of recent illness reports. CDC is also collaborating with state and federal partners to evaluate data collected from ill people to determine if an outbreak of GI illnesses is occurring and its potential link to Lucky Charms cereal.

Instructions for health officials
Given that there is not enough information at this time to establish an outbreak. Health officials are advised to:

Treat complaints related to Lucky Charms cereal like all other complaints.

Interview complainants with standard illness complaint forms to collect details on clinical presentation such as symptoms, symptom onset date, symptom resolution dates and times AND

Collect a 3 to 4 day food history.

Collect production code/production date, and lot code from any boxes linked to a complaint.

Consider collecting leftover boxes of Lucky Charms from ill peoples’ homes, particularly for persons who are also willing to submit a stool specimen. It is not yet clear what the cereal should be tested for — that will depend on a review of detailed clinical data. If possible, please hold the product until we know more about the etiology of the illnesses.

Test complainants who are willing to submit a stool specimen for common foodborne pathogens (this is usually not done for individual complaints, but in this situation would be valuable to rule out Lucky Charms as the source of illness).